"It means if you go to abc.net.au on your Next G internet connection, both Telstra and the US company knows about it."

Mr Newton says he had no idea such information was going offshore.

"Australians should know when their private data is collected, what that data is going to be used for and who it is going to be disclosed to," he said.

He says he has emailed Telstra, asking why it is sending internet address data to a third party.

"Privacy protections in the United States are very, very minimal. There are almost no controls at all on what an American company can do with private data that’s been gathered from consumers," he said.

Privacy concerns

Users on the Australian broadband forum Whirlpool also want to know why the information is being sent, who it is being sent to, and why they were not told about it.

Telstra has admitted to sending data overseas.

Telstra spokeswoman Nicole McKechnie says the company has been collecting data for a one of its new products which will allow parents to block their children from accessing certain websites.

"We were trying to classify internet sites as part of a new tool to help parents and kids when they're surfing the net," she said.

"Cyberspace safety is a really important issue to address but we're obviously conscious of individual rights in that as well and we are going to be talking with key industry bodies to determine how next best to proceed."

Telstra is working with US company Netsweeper, which is building the database for the filter.

Ms McKechnie says personal data was not collected or stored.

"At no point in the development of this product was personal information collected or stored and that's critical from our perspective," she said.

"However we've been listening to our customers and our customer trust is incredibly important to us and as a sign of good faith we're actually stopping all collection of website addresses for the development of this new product immediately."

Telstra says the product will be "opt in", but Mr Newton says its current data collection strategy is not.

"It's being collected and then sent to the US company without anyone being told about it. And I have a problem with that. And I think anyone who has concerns about privacy should also," he said.

Western Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says he has asked Telstra to provide more details.

"Any item that's out there on the web has to have its unique address or it can't be found. And I don't want to overstate or overplay this because at the moment it's just really quite ambiguous as to what’s even occurring," he said.

"But, potentially, profiles can be built of people out of the places that they go and the things that they look at online, or the people that they're in contact with. These things are possible. These are live debates."

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